owed and begged to have their treasures back, promising
prosperity to the lady's race if she would restore them. She kept them,
however; and they are said to be still preserved at Liungby as memorials
of the adventure. But the serving-man who took them died three days
after, and the horse on the second day; the mansion has been twice
burnt, and the family never prospered after. On the eve of the first of
May the witches of Germany hold high revel. Every year the fields and
farmyards of a certain landowner were so injured by these nocturnal
festivities that one of his servants determined to put a stop to the
mischief. Going to the trysting-place, he found the witches eating and
drinking around a large slab of marble which rested on four golden
pillars; and on the slab lay a golden horn of wondrous form. The
sorceresses invited him to join the feast; but a fellow-servant whom he
met there warned him not to drink, for they only wished to poison him.
Wherefore he flung the proffered beverage away, seized the horn, and
galloped home as hard as he could. All doors and gates had been left
open for him; and the witches consequently were unable to catch him. The
next day a gentleman in fine clothes appeared and begged his master to
restore the horn, promising in return to surround his property with a
wall seven feet high, but threatening, in case of refusal, to burn his
farms down thrice, and that just when he thought himself richest. Three
days were allowed to the landowner for consideration, but he declined to
restore the horn. The next harvest had hardly been housed when his barns
were in flames. Three times did this happen, and the landowner was
reduced to poverty. By the king's kindness he was enabled to rebuild;
and he then made every effort to discover the owner of the horn, sending
it about for that purpose even as far as Constantinople; but no one
could be found to claim it.[110]

Somewhat more courteous was a Danish boy whom an Elf-maiden met and
offered drink from a costly drinking-horn one evening as he rode
homeward late from Ristrup to Siellevskov. He received the horn, but
fearing to drink its contents, poured them out behind him, so that, as
in several of these stories, they fell on the horse's back, and singed
the hair off. The horn he held fast, and the horse probably needed no
second hint to start at the top of its speed. The elf-damsel gave chase
until horse and man reached a running water, across which she co